


Just Waiting for You to Catch On

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Series: 30 Day Writing Challenge (Derek/Stiles) [24]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Oblivious Stiles, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek got thrown together every time they were even in the vaguest vicinity of each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Waiting for You to Catch On

It started at a pack meeting.

Stiles was the last to arrive, and found every seat taken. It wasn’t a big deal, and he went to sit on the floor against the arm of the couch, but Derek hauled him forwards until he was half on Derek’s lap where he hadn’t fit in the space between Derek and the arm. He arranged himself so that he was sitting more on the arm than Derek, but Derek tugged at his feet until Stiles draped his legs across his lap. They stayed that way until the meeting was over, and Derek tapped his fingers on Stiles’ knee until he got up to leave.

 

It was almost two in the morning the next time Stiles saw Derek. Despite the fact that Stiles had his own apartment now (well, one that he shared with Scott), Derek never seemed to have shaken the habit of climbing in through his window. 

Stiles yawned, even as he reached for the bat tucked under his desk. “Is someone dying?”

Derek snorted softly. “No,” he said. “I brought you some coffee.”

Stiles took it without a second thought, sipping at it and sighing softly. “God, you make the best coffee.”

Derek shrugged, pulling Stiles’ second chair over to the computer. “What’re you working on?”

“Scott thinks there might be a wendigo in town.” Stiles kept scrolling, even when Derek placed his chin on his shoulder to watch. “We want to see if there’s an alternative food source for it before we have to kill it.”

He could feel Derek’s face contort into a frown from the tightening of skin just against his cheek, where the other was resting his temple. “Why are you doing it at this time of night?”

“We need to be prepared before it decides to go on a killing spree,” Stiles said easily, clicking another page open over the bestiary. “We also need to know where to find it.”

“So you’re doing this while Scott gets to sleep?” Derek sounded unimpressed.

“What? No, that’s Kira. Scott’s out following the scent. He was actually going to give you a call if he found it.”

Stiles’ phone buzzed as if on cue and he pulled it out. Derek read the message over his shoulder. “If it’s left the territory, then I don’t think it really matters much,” Derek told him. “If it comes back, then it’s our problem.”

Stiles shot him a look. “We went to Mexico to save your ass once,” he pointed out. “Pretty sure the boundary lines have been kind of blurred to us by now.”

Derek reached out and tapped a few buttons, making the computer screen go black. “That was different,” he said. “A pack member had gone missing; there are exceptions to the normal rules, and that’s one of them.” He ignored Stiles’ protests and switched the lamp off, taking his phone and sending Scott a short message back. He manhandled Stiles to his bed, until covers were being unceremoniously thrown over him. 

Followed by Derek.

“Mother—seriously, Derek?” Stiles groaned. “I can’t breathe, you idiot.”

“You can talk, you can breathe,” Derek answered, but he got off with something that looked like a fond smile in the faint light from outside. “Go to sleep, Stiles.” 

 

Possibly the most embarrassing of these increasing moments with Derek was just a few days later. As it turned out, the wendigo had wandered back onto Hale territory (now McCall territory, but old habits die hard and all that) and had promptly decided that a killing spree was in order. It started with a couple of stoners in the woods, and ended there. Or was supposed to. Stiles wasn’t exactly sure what was happening at the moment, because after he’d thrown a flamethrower at it, it had run off screaming into the woods. Scott and Liam had gone tearing after it, but it had circled back around to try and attack Stiles, still burning. Which had led to being pressed into the ground with Derek forming a human cage around him with his body, while he strained to listen for the sounds of the wendigo dying, and not Scott or Liam.

Embarrassing, because even when the wendigo was dead (finally: it turned out that fire was key, it just took a few minutes), Derek stayed right where he was. “Derek, c’mon,” Stiles grunted, pushing pointlessly at his chest. “I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re all fine. Let me up.”

Derek tilted his head down and, as a result, slid his nose along Stiles’. Stiles couldn’t stop the shiver that went through him, and couldn’t miss the grin on Derek’s face before he pushed himself to his knees, so that he was merely straddling Stiles’ waist rather than covering his entire body. Which was absolutely not going to help the situation if he stayed there much longer.

So Stiles made the mistake of sitting up in an effort to get out from under Derek himself, except that this put him right up in Derek’s face again, and he was still grinning. “You look awfully pleased with yourself,” Stiles grumbled, for lack of anything else to say, and to distract himself from Derek’s hand settling on his shoulder.

“I am,” Derek answered happily, before finally—finally—getting to his feet and offering Stiles a hand too. Stiles very carefully moved a few feet away, but it didn’t seem to matter. Scott and Liam were staring at him and Derek with expressions of confusion and—in Liam’s case—unbridled glee. 

Stiles very pointedly refused to look at any of them on the way back to his Jeep.

 

It kept happening. Stiles and Derek got thrown together almost every time the pack had a meeting, or a game night, or just about every time they wound up in even the vaguest vicinity of each other. Even more so, Derek kept showing up in Stiles’ room. He didn’t have a problem with it; he hadn’t really had a problem with it since the time Derek used Stiles’ bedroom as a place to hide from the cops back in high school. But when Stiles got home from the community college one evening, completely exhausted and ready to crash for the night, he found Derek already in his bed.

Like, actually in his bed. Under the covers and everything.

Stiles considered this for a long moment, until Derek cracked an eye open. “How was the lecture?” he asked. His voice came out muffled, because his face was smushed into Stiles’ pillow, and he didn’t even bother to move.

“It wasn’t bad,” Stiles said slowly. “Turns out the students of Beacon Hills really enjoy mythology, even if it is being taught by someone who’s barely older than they are.” He pulled off his white button-up and threw it into the hamper by the closet door, shucking off his pants in favor of a pair of house pants. When he turned back around, it was to find Derek gazing at him intently. Stiles had a feeling that he’d been watching the whole time.

He didn’t really mind.

Then Derek was stretching his entire body out, and even under the blanket Stiles could see the way his muscles flexed with the motion. His stomach flipped over at the sleepy smile Derek shot in his direction before curling up on his side and yanking the blanket back up to his chin from where it had slid to rest around his chest. Stiles cleared his throat. “So, uh, is everything okay? You’re not on the run again, are you?”

Derek laughed. “No, I was waiting for you.”

Stiles blinked, and shook his head, trying not to think about the way that sounded, paired with the image of Derek in his bed. “Well, I, uh, I was just going to go to sleep. Long day.” It was the truth; the previous night had been spent performing a ritual to ensure that the fae that had almost settled in the preserve couldn’t come back. Between that and his evening class, he’d only managed a couple of hours earlier in the day, and he was just about ready to drop now.

Derek shifted a little, like he was going to get up, but he just lifted the covers on the other side of the bed. Stiles only hesitated for a few seconds because, on one hand, sharing a bed with a werewolf that he was blatantly in love with was a terrible idea. But he was really tired, and in the end he just wasn’t up to arguing about it. Especially when he knew that Derek would win anyways.

“I tend to kick in my sleep,” Stiles warned him around a yawn.

“You’re not so bad,” Derek said so quietly that Stiles almost didn’t hear him, but by the time it registered in his mind, he was already drifting to sleep.

 

“Okay, this is enough!”

Was it Stiles’ fault? Maybe in part. But Derek had been the one who texted him to come to his house so they could go over a lesson plan for Stiles’ students (because Derek was good at filling in the blanks of not-so-mythological creatures). So Stiles had made his way over as per request, only to arrive just in time for Derek to step out of the shower in nothing but low-riding sweatpants and still dripping wet.

Derek shrugged. “I mean, I really wasn’t finished yet. I forgot shampoo.”

“No, not—you’re doing all of this on purpose!” Stiles glared at him, trying so hard to avoid letting his eyes wander across Derek’s abdomen to the jut of his hipbones peeking out over his waistband. “And it’s not funny, okay? It’s very confusing, all of it, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all of it!”

Derek tilted his head, smiling that fond smile he did almost all the time when he looked at Stiles lately. “Are you sure? Because I’m not sure it is enough. I was going to get ‘Stiles, I love you, get your head out of your ass’ spray-painted onto a billboard if you didn’t catch on soon.”

And Stiles lost the ability to speak entirely.

Derek took the opportunity to take a few steps forward and place a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be out in a little bit,” he said. “I think you should make some dinner and get changed into some pajamas. You know where they are.” He turned to walk away.

“Pajamas?” His voice absolutely did not break on the word.

“Well, you’re staying over, aren’t you?”

Derek disappeared into the bathroom with a pleased smile on his face, and Stiles wondered how he had missed the fact that the guy he was in love with apparently was just waiting for him to catch up.


End file.
